Scientists Accidentally Create A Plastic-Eating Enzyme
A Japanese waste dump
is an unlikely location for what may be a huge breakthrough in the plastics
pollution crisis. But back in 2016, a
team of Japanese scientists sifting through plastic waste found bacteria capable of breaking
down and “eating” one of the world’s most popular plastics ―
polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. It was hailed as a potential breakthrough
at the time. But in a new twist, British and American scientists
have announced that while studying this bacteria, they accidentally created a
mutant enzyme that’s even more efficient at breaking down plastic bottles.
The discovery came as
a team of scientists from the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. and the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the U.S. examined an enzyme
produced by the Japanese bacteria to find out more about its structure. By
shining intense beams of X-rays on it, 10 billion times brighter
than the sun, they were able to see individual atoms. Manipulating the
structure to better understand how it worked, they accidentally engineered the
mutant enzyme.
“Serendipity often
plays a significant role in fundamental scientific research and our discovery
here is no exception,” said John McGeehan, a biology professor at the
University of Portsmouth and one of the lead scientists on the research. “This
unanticipated discovery suggests that there is room to further improve these
enzymes, moving us closer to a recycling solution for the ever-growing mountain
of discarded plastics.”.. read more:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/enzyme-plastic-bottles-pollution_us_5ad5e364e4b0edca2cbde373
